Veteran Stories:John Smith

Merchant Navy

"There was a submarine on our quarter. If it was an enemy submarine or a friendly submarine, I don’t know... But he couldn't catch us because we got a hell of a good wind behind us and we were going good."

Transcript

We came up and we got off of Bermuda. It was a squally morning. There was rainsqualls, dark rainsqualls would come up. We’d go like a scalded cat cause the wind was a good sheet off. In fact, there was too much wind for the mainsail, and we used to lower the mainsail down, so the canvas would touch deck. And then when the squall went by, we would raise it up again. There was a submarine on our quarter. If it was an enemy submarine or a friendly submarine, I don’t know. I would think, from my experiences afterwards, that it had to be a German sub because they were hanging around that area. Shortly after that, a schooner coming back, I mentioned earlier, the Helen Force, in that same area, this guy got shelled and lost the vessel and lost two men, two crew members. So I would think it was a German sub. But he couldn’t catch us because we got a hell of a good wind behind us and we were going good.